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12.14.2011

Winter Wedge Salad With Roquefort Blue Cheese

I know iceberg lettuce gets a bad rap, but I am a huge fan of wedge salads. I like to order them when I go to steakhouses. Something about blue cheese and tomatoes always seems like the perfect precursor to a juicy steak. When I received a sample of Roquefort blue cheese from Ile de France, these flavors came to mind, and a wedge salad was the first thing I wanted to make. (A juicy steak was the second, though I didn't end up making one.)

I started envisioning the combination of crispy bacon, robust Roquefort blue cheese, crunchy iceberg lettuce, and sweet tomatoes -- except here it is in the middle of December, and sweet tomatoes are not so easy to come by. My first thought was to make some slow-roasted tomatoes in the oven, but I wanted my salad ready that same night, and roasting tomatoes for 5 to 6 hours after work was not going to fly. I thought I could start with grape tomatoes, which tend to be sweeter and more resilient than other tomatoes during the winter months, and quickly roast them to release a little more flavor. This worked, not only to brighten the tomato flavor but also to add a warm element to the salad.

I liked the idea of adding some warm components to this winter salad and also fried some shallots (in bacon grease leftover from crisping some bacon for the salad) to throw on top.

I wanted the Roquefort to pop and I didn't want the salad to be too heavy, so in lieu of making a blue cheese dressing, I chopped and tossed the cheese on top of the iceberg lettuce and then drizzled some high-quality balsamic vinegar on top.